Development Poverty and Politics: Putting Communities in the DriverÆs Seat

by Martin; Richard

• ISBN13: 9780415995627
• ISBN10: 0415995620
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-12-02
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Top down . . . bottom up . . . what works? This book explores development from the perspective of the poor. Who are they? What lives do they live? What matters to them? And most importantly, what can they do about it?Martin and Mathema debate how people can be given legitimate control of their own environment, and how governments can work with them. How do communities and conditions drive behavior? What interventions are appropriate and how can we approach development imaginatively?This is not about usurping governance ' but revisiting structures that the developed world has come to accept, and placing the power of decision in the hands of the people it affects.Nor it is about money . . . it's about people, and about how we can make our world work for everyone.

Author Biography

Ashna Mathema is a city planner/architect specializing in low-income housing and urban development. Her work in informal and underserviced settlements spans 20 countries, mostly in Africa, and East and South Asia. Through in-depth field work and personal interviews with local residents, she draws on their aspirations, struggles, and successes to establish a development process that is participatory and more responsive to their needs. Richard Martin is an architect/town planner who became engaged with informal settlements when he started working in Zambia in the 1960s. He taught in the field of sites and services and upgrading at Bouwcentrum International Education. He has written widely and worked in many countries in Africa in the field of housing and informal settlements.

Table of Contents

List of Boxes	p. xi
List of Figures	p. xv
Foreword	p. xvii
Acknowledgments	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
Righteous Indignation: The War on Poverty	p. 15
How the Other Half Lives: Slums and Informality	p. 26
What Lies Beneath: A View from the Inside	p. 52
Policy and Practice: The Missing Link	p. 82
The Legal Framework: Opression or Defiance?	p. 107
Constructive Engagement: Structuring Participation	p. 129
Crossing the Great Divide: Negotiation and Consensus Building	p. 175
Barefoot Professionals: A New Breed of Experts	p. 192
Fair Trade: Where Economics and Finance Make a Difference	p. 209
Who Did What? Monitoring, Evaluation, and Corruption	p. 222
New Ways of Working	p. 236
Notes	p. 263
Bibliography	p. 275
Index	p. 281
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